RadioShack Exploring Sale: Report

FORT WORTH, Texas ( TheStreet) -- RadioShack ( RSH) is exploring strategic alternatives including a possible sale of the company for more than $3 billion, sources told the New York Post.

Investment bankers already have begun pitching their private-equity clients about a leveraged buyout of RadioShack, notifying them of the electronics retailer's willingness to sell, according to people close to the situation, the Post reports.

RadioShack's other possibility is a merger with rival Best Buy ( BBY), the newspaper notes.

A RadioShack spokesman declined to comment for the Post, while Best Buy officials didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

"This is all about handheld devices," said one banking source close to the situation. "A whole new wave of these products are coming out and they're going to break the monopoly of the carriers," whose market power has hurt RadioShack's profits, the Post reports.

JPMorgan Chase could lead the sales process for RadioShack.

"It is very, very early" in the process, and any auction wouldn't likely begin for weeks or even months, the source told the Post.